| dc.description.abstract | This paper examines the accident reporting procedures in the maritime transportation sector. A parallel study, corresponding to this study, revealed a vast amount of underreporting by several western flag states. This is resulting in a poor situational awareness, making it difficult to implement sufficient measures and derive a wanted safety level. Reporting of accidents is globally regulated by IMO and made mandatory by the flag states‟ regulations. The Norwegian flag state, regulating the procedures for all Norwegian flagged vessels and for all vessels in Norwegian waters has been the main focus in this paper.
Reporting of an accident can be visualized as a chain of actors which information has to pass through. Underreporting occurs if the links between the actors are broken. The chain starts in one end with the ship‟s crew and master, being the first to detect any accident. The information is then passed on to the ship owner, who in turn forwards a report to the respective flag state. Alternatively, an accident can be detected by Vessel Traffic Services or by Rescue Coordination Centers.
Input for this study was gained through interviewing the actors in the reporting chain and through a literature study of the legislation regulating the procedures. Further, a comparative threshold analysis was carried out to measure the differences in the threshold for reporting an incident for the aviation industry in comparison with the maritime industry.
The results indicated that the links in the reporting chain is vulnerable to breaches. The Norwegian legislation seems to be somewhat ineffective with respect to actors placed under a mandatory reporting scheme. The Norwegian legislation is not efficient enough to protect the findings from investigation to be used in other contexts than what it is intended for, meaning that investigation reports are misused as evidences in court. The ship owners appear to be little motivated because they receive little relevant feedback. The seafarers also seem to be withholding reports to their ship owners due to their fear of being punished or fired. Compared to the aviation industry, the maritime transportation sector is characterized by a poor safety culture, meaning that the sector shows little interest in sharing and receiving lessons learned by experience.
Much can be transferred from the aviation industry or from other flag states, like the United Kingdom. Reporting performance may be increased by improving regulations, motivation and safety culture. | nb_NO |
